


water, breath, rain, mercy from heaven's gate

by atlantisairlock



Category: Non-Stop (2014)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, Getting Together, Post-Canon, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-21
Updated: 2014-03-21
Packaged: 2018-01-16 11:12:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1345345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlantisairlock/pseuds/atlantisairlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where it wasn't just Zack who died in the explosion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	water, breath, rain, mercy from heaven's gate

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'i need you' by leann rimes.

There's a particular look in a person's eyes when they know they are about to die. Sometimes it's pure terror, sometimes it's uncontrollable rage, other times it's serene tranquility - whichever it is depends on the circumstances. In Zack's eyes, Bill sees rage.

In Nancy's, it's terror.

He has two minutes - less - before the bomb goes off and they'll know whether the never-tried-before explosives protocol is really effective in doing what it has to do. They're past negotiation now, and Bill knows Zack intends to die on his own terms now that he realizes he can't make it out there alive and pull off the hijack without any more hitches. He intends to get blown up along with the bomb he and Tom created. 

The thing is, he's got Nancy.

"Be reasonable, Zack," Bill says quietly, checking his watch surreptitiously.  _One minute, thirty seconds._ "Let her go."

Zack sneers at him, a flash of teeth and tightens his grip on Nancy's throat, making her gag. "You want me to let her go? Alright, I'll let her go." Nancy feels a leap of hope, one which is quickly killed by Zack's next words. "On one condition."

Her heart drops into her stomach.  _No._

Bill nods expectantly. "What?"

"You come here." Zack gestures with his pistol. "You take her place, here. In other words - you die too, you fucker." 

 _No,_ Nancy wants to scream, feeling the beginning of a panic attack set in.  _No._ He's actually considering it, she realises - Bill's jaw sets and his eyes harden and he tilts his head to the right. He's actually going to do it. 

"All right, I'll do it."

The hijacker's mocking smile widens. "Put your gun down."

Bill places his weapon on the floor and walks over, step by step.  _One minute, two seconds._ "I'm coming over. Just let her go." 

"Man of my word," Zack answers with a mock-honourable tone. He releases his hold on Nancy, and she chokes a little but she doesn't move, just stares at Bill pleadingly, begging him  _please._ Bill doesn't meet her gaze, just keeps his eyes on Zack and talks to her in a steady, unwavering tone. "Nancy, go."

"No!" She darts forward and grabs Bill's arm as he heads deeper into the mouth of the beast, knowing he's never coming back. "Bill, no, you can't -" She's cut short when he whirls around and affixes her with a hard stare. "This is not a request!" He barks, unflinching.  _Forty seconds._ "I order you to  _leave!_ Right now!"

Nancy's eyes fill with tears she can't blink back and she shakes her head violently even as Zack yells _"what the fuck are you two playing at?"_ from behind them. "Bill, please," she chokes on the words that are getting harder to force past the lump in her throat. "Bill, I love you."

 _Twenty seconds._ Bill swallows and his eyes shine a little too brightly; he moves one hand to cup her cheek with more tenderness in his touch than he remembers since Olivia's death. "I love you, too," and he kisses her like he means it, kisses her for the first and final time. "Now go."

She sees the flame in his eyes and she turns, she runs, and she's just through the next cabin when she feels the tremors of the explosion from behind, throwing her off her step, and the sudden heat begins to lick at the back of her neck, at her ankles. 

Nancy wants to throw up.

 

 

When they land the press gets the real story after hours of conspiracy theories flying around, and straightaway everyone's lauding Bill Marks as a hero, a martyr, expressing grief at the fact that he had to die to save the innocent lives on British Aqualantic Flight 10. Nancy hides her face from cameras and forces a smile on her face to hug Becca and Gwen goodbye. Becca presses Bill's ribbon into her hand with a gaze full of sorrow beyond her years. It's only after that she manages to stumble to the side of the runway, retches even though there's nothing in her stomach. She collapses to her knees and buries her face in her hands, her entire body shaking with sobs. All she can see when her eyes close is Bill's last gaze at her and all she can feel is that heat, that horror. 

"Nancy?..." The voice is familiar, soft and curious and worried.  _Jen._ "Are you...?"

"Jen." Nancy struggles onto shaky feet and Jen catches her shoulder, propping her up. "Zack - he, he held me hostage, he was going to make me... make me die with him when the bomb exploded. And Bill - Bill..." She trails off, because she can't find the words to describe that mélange of emotions that is still flowing through her blood. Jen pulls her in for a hug and she gratefully accepts, allowing herself to fall to pieces.

 

 

"You should request for a leave of absence," Jen advises her when they're on the plane back to New York. 

"Should I?"

Jen raises an eyebrow at her. "I'm not doubting you, Nancy, but you had two panic attacks in succession when they said they were bringing us home on an airplane. It's not going to be a good idea getting on a plane to do your job."

"I don't have some... backup job I can fall back on. I need a salary to keep myself alive." She brings the cup of chamomile to her lips, her hands trembling and she forces herself not to drop the cup. "I don't have anybody."

There is a long pause. "You have me."

 

 

"I can't live in your guestroom rent-free, Jen."

Jen stops hanging Nancy's coat in her closet and frowns. "Is this my house or not?"

"It's your house."

"Good. So stop telling me what to do, unpack and get settled in." 

Nancy manages a wan smile. "Okay."

 

 

"He must have really loved you."

Nancy's knuckles turn white as she tightens her grip around her cup of chamomile. "I did, too."

 

 

One time Jen comes home from grocery shopping and when she goes up to ask Nancy whether she wants any tea with lunch she catches just the slightest whiff of gas coming from the locked room.

It's a moment of abject terror and Jen scrambles for her spare key, all but wrenches the door off its hinges and cradles an unconscious Nancy in her arms, turns off the gas and puts her in the backseat of her car then drives to the nearest hospital. It's a tense, terrible wait for her to regain consciousness but when she does, Jen's there with her.

"Fuck, I nearly lost you," Jen whispers when Nancy's eyes open again. "Don't do that, Christ. Bill wouldn't have wanted you to join him  _this_ soon."

"That's not all, is it?" Nancy murmurs, closes her eyes, and Jen averts her gaze, breathing a long, drawn-out sigh. "I don't want you to die."

Nancy's eyes are the colour of the sea after a storm. "But I do."

 

 

She cuts off all contact with Gwen, resigns and locks herself in her room all day after she's discharged, and refuses to see a psychiatrist.

Jen always lets out a breath she doesn't realise she's holding when Nancy appears for meals every day.  _She's alive._

 

 

Jen catches her in her bathroom - Jesus Christ, how is this her life - holding a razor blade to her wrists. There are open wounds dripping crimson blood running the length of Nancy's forearm. It's not a good moment. Jen tries to calm herself and grate out a firm  _Nancy, put that down_ but when Nancy doesn't appear to have seen her and lifts the blade to slice her veins and arteries open she throws caution to the wind and just screams  _Nancy, fuck, put that down or so help me God I will kill you._

Nancy looks up at her with glazed eyes, smirking mirthlessly as if it's all a joke. "I can do that myself."

"Nancy," Jen drops to her knees and knocks the blade out of Nancy's hand without a second thought, letting it spin away and clatter against the tiles. "Nancy, shit, when are you going to understand that Bill isn't the only one who _loves_ you?"

The words slip out before Jen can halt them spiralling down her tongue and she sees Nancy's brow knit, confused, but still managing to mumble, amused.  _"Who?"_

She doesn't need to say  _me_ but Nancy catches on anyway, barks a jerky, loud laugh. She points unsteadily at Jen, says:  _"you?_ _"_

 _"_ Nancy - " Nancy cuts her off with a sloppy kiss at the edge of her mouth, at her lips, then pushes herself back off with a breathless laugh and rocks on her haunches while Jen's still reeling. "You like that?" She slurs, and that's when Jen realises she's drunk and possibly high, and something squeezes tight in her chest. God, she's dreamed of that, but not like  _this,_ never like this.

Breaking out her reverie Jen grabs Nancy's shoulders and shakes her. "You have to stop," She growls fiercely, staring her straight in the eyes. "Nancy, you have to stop. Please," Her voice cracks down the middle, a fault line in the surface of the Earth. "Please."

Something comes back to life in Nancy's dull eyes. "I can't."

 

 

There are shaking hands, there is trembling speech, there are many variations of  _I can't do this_  before Nancy manages to book her first appointment at a nearby counsellor's. Jen has to sit by her side and lace her fingers through her friend's when Nancy recounts Bill giving his life for hers. It hurts, a little. Knowing that Nancy's more in love with a ghost, a lingering spirit, than she'll ever be with her. But she'll take that, Jen reasons. She'll take that to see Nancy smile again. 

The counsellor calls her in while Nancy's booking a next session with the receptionist and gives her a general run-through about her state of mind. 

"Your girlfriend will be fine," she reassures Jen as she wraps up the discussion with a soothing smile on her face. "Don't worry."

Jen's breath hitches.  _She's not my girlfriend,_ she wants to object and correct the counsellor.

But she just nods, smiles, and replies "thank you."

 

 

It's hard. The first few months when Jen does random searches of the house she still finds cans of beer and champagne bottles and just a storehouse of evidence that Nancy's still drinking - she can't find any narcotics and prays fervently that  _I was wrong she was just drunk_ or that  _it was just a one-time thing._ She takes all the alcohol and pours it down the drain, every time, and keeps driving Nancy to her counselling sessions, and just prays, prays that she'll get better.

And slowly, gradually, she does. Jen stops finding any hidden stashes of alcohol no matter how thoroughly she combs the house. Nancy smiles more, laughs a little, stops locking herself in her room and actually does things. It doesn't come easily, it doesn't come fast and recovery and healing's tied to a _lot_  of panic attacks that scare the hell out of Jen. But there's a light in in Nancy's eyes now, a light she doesn't remember seeing, ever. It's a process, and God bless, it's working.

 

 

She gets a text at work one afternoon, almost a year after - after.  _I made reservations. x_

Jen smiles, unlocks her phone.  _Where?_

_That fancy Italian place down the road._

_Time._

_Seven._

_Deal._

 

 

"To happiness," is the toast Nancy suggests with her glass of spring water, and Jen toasts back. "To healing."

They sip, and then Nancy looks up at her with sparkling eyes. "Jen."

"Yeah."

"Thank you." She reaches across the table and takes Jen's hand in hers, running her thumb over ridges and scars. "You know something. I discovered a lot...  lot during all those sessions." She takes a deep breath. "And I finally realised, if Bill thought I was worth of saving, then why am I trying so hard to prove him wrong, right?" She fiddles with her fork nervously. "I'm going to... I want to do something. I don't think I can go back in the air, any more, but I'm thinking of just... settling and doing something productive. Maybe be my own boss, or something." She beams, proud, and Jen feels something settle inside the maelstrom that is her heart. "I'm glad."

"And - I needed - I need to tell you this." Nancy leans forward, her grip on Jen's fingers tightening, earnest. "Jen, listen, that day in the bathroom, that day I was going to kill myself, that day when I kissed you..." She exhales and it comes out in a rush. "I meant it."

Jen thinks her heart misses a beat and the world spins into a rush of scintillating colour and chaotic sound.  _No, no, no way._

"I love you," Nancy murmurs. "I love you, and God, I don't know any other way to  _show_ you, or to tell you, just..." She spreads her hands and gestures to everything around her. "I love you."

 _That's okay, I don't know any way either, I'm scared, I love you too, I always have,_ the thoughts run riot in the recesses of Jen's mind but she just shoves her chair back with an unholy screeching sound and gets up. When she speaks it's as if she was far, far away, an out of body experience, and she watches herself snap a terse  _am I just your consolation prize because you'll never see him alive again?_ and walk out of the restaurant, leaving Nancy there, alone. 

There's so much, too much, everything's clamouring for attention in her head and she just walks aimlessly for hours, hours, before she finally decides to go home.

 

 

A sole light glows at the window that opens up into the living room and Jen checks her watch.  _2.20 AM._ She feels the guilt curl up bitter on her tongue as she fishes for her keys and opens the front door. 

Nancy's there, dozing on the couch but the moment the door clicks open her eyes snap open and she's instantly alert, propping herself up and meeting Jen's eyes. When she speaks, it's mild and holds echoes of the past, of back when it was Jen sitting by her side in the hospital after she'd tried to gas herself. 

"I thought you'd run off forever," she murmurs the same moment Jen whispers in stunned guilt. "You waited for me."

Nancy gets up, walks towards her and stands in front of her, eyes awash with sadness and a little bit of understanding, too. "I know you think I'm seeing you as silver medal, and that you're just a replacement for Bill." 

"Aren't I?" The bitterness and resentment tastes like acid, washing down her throat and burning her from the inside. 

"You're not second prize," Nancy grabs her wrist, nails digging into the skin. "God, Jen, you're not second prize. You could never be. I _loved_ him," she leans closer until Jen can feel her breath on her cheek. "But I _love_ you."

"When?"

"When what?"

"When you realised you were  _in love_ with me," Jen deadpans and heaps sarcasm on the _in love_ , the inferno that's fuelled by all-too-human jealousy and frustration and anguish rearing its head. Nancy flinches, then collects herself and shrugs. "I don't know," she answers, ragged with weariness. "I don't know."

Something shifts within her, and she takes Nancy's hand and traces the scar down her chest, her voice a little lower now. "I'm a dead woman walking, and you've got everything ahead of you."

Nancy tilts her head and shakes it, just the slightest. "I don't care." Their eyes meet and Nancy tucks a lock of hair behind Jen's ear. "And I'm sorry."

There's so much to say, and things are going to get so much more complicated, and suddenly the future looks murky and uncertain in front of her. Jen's still aware that she could die tomorrow and there are so many more plot twists that are going to happen. But she's always taken the window seat, she's always jumped into things because there is so much left that she hasn't done and so Jen smiles and whispers a lighthearted "I'm not" and kisses her; kisses her the  _right_ way this time, kisses her  _back._ Nancy threads her fingers through Jen's hair and pulls her closer and the next time she says  _I love you,_

Jen says it back. 


End file.
